WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. told senior lawmakers in classified briefings last summer that it had information indicating that Russia was working to help elect Donald J. Trump president, a finding that did not emerge publicly until after Mr. Trump’s victory months later, former government officials say.

The briefings indicate that intelligence officials had evidence of Russia’s intentions to help Mr. Trump much earlier in the presidential campaign than previously thought. The briefings also reveal a critical split last summer between the C.I.A. and counterparts at the F.B.I., where a number of senior officials continued to believe through last fall that Russia’s cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting America’s political system, and not at getting Mr. Trump elected, according to interviews.

The former officials said that in late August — 10 weeks before the election — John O. Brennan, then the C.I.A. director, was so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that he began a series of urgent, individual briefings for eight top members of Congress, some of them on secure phone lines while they were on their summer break.

It is unclear what new intelligence might have prompted the classified briefings. But with concerns growing both internally and publicly at the time about a significant Russian breach of the Democratic National Committee, the C.I.A. began seeing signs of possible connections to the Trump campaign, the officials said. By the campaign’s final weeks, Congress and the intelligence agencies were racing to understand the scope of the Russia threat.

In an Aug. 25 briefing for Harry Reid, then the top Democrat in the Senate, Mr. Brennan indicated that Russia’s hackings appeared aimed at helping Mr. Trump win the November election, according to two former officials with knowledge of the briefing.

So, let’s be clear. The CIA did their job. The CIA got the information. The CIA delivered the information to the people that they should have-THE F.B.I., the President, the leaders of Congress.

We know what the FBI Director did.

The GOP leadership knew. They kept quiet. They are traitors to this country and should be treated as such.

It’s going to take much more than a couple of weeks of ‘vacation’ away Mr O’Reilly…

You’ll have to go away permanently…

For good..

The ironic thing is that he’s probably headed to Rome this week…he’s supposedly spent the past many years…pre-dating Pope Francis and even Benedict, celebrating Easter attending the Pope’s mass at the Vatican…

Anyone can, however, have some Black-ass shit happen to them. And David Dao, the doctor recently dragged off of a United Airlines flight, wasn’t quite a nigga for a day, but was definitely treated like one. And then United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz added to the niggafication of this ordeal by describing the doctor as “disruptive and belligerent” and apologized for having to inconvenience the other passengers. (Please re-read those last eight words.) After reading that statement, I was immediately reminded of Henry Davis, the man who was beaten by Ferguson police and then charged with property damage because he bled on their uniforms. Which is just one of countless examples of something like that happening to a Black person; where pain is inflicted on us, and our natural and justifiable response to that pain is treated as some sort of burden and agitation. We’re the insensitive and violent ones for merely reacting to violence; for getting hit and saying “Oww. That hurt. Please stop.”

In America, this particular type of trauma-dependent gaslighting a uniquely Black phenomenon that synopsizes much of our experience here. But, as the soon-to-be-rich-as-the-fuck Dao learned, it actually happening isn’t unique to Black people.

I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my own experience flying United in February when I went to Florida for surgery. I was supposed to fly back the next day after the surgery and made it as far as Houston. The connecting flight to Tucson was supposed to take off 1.5 hrs after we landed. Well, they spent about six hours delaying the flight for maintenance reasons then cancelled it. They sent us to a hotel to sleep for three hours, gave us useless food vouchers because everything was closed, and then shuttled us back to the airport at 4:30 AM.

Well, my overall condition was not so good. I had not slept longer than one or two hours at a stretch for the previous four days. I was so extremely tired and I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I couldn’t correct it. I remember trying to use the restroom on the plane and couldn’t figure out how to open the door which only involved turning a knob. The flight attendant had to assist me.

If I had been told that I had been randomly selected to give up my seat, I honestly do not think I could have comprehended the situation. The other possibility, and probably more likely, is that I might have just simply collapsed.

It is truly astonishing that this is how these people run their airline business. They would rather take a chance that they seriously harm a person rather than pay a few extra hundred dollars as incentive for a volunteer.

Sean Spicer Is What Happens When You Give Mediocre White Men Microphones
Damon Young, 4/11/17

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Of course, for those who’ve studied the peculiarities unique to the culture of White Mediocrity — the anthropological subcategory exclusively compromised of candy corn-ass White people who’re convinced they’re king-sized fucking Snickers — none of this is a surprise. This is what happens when they’re promoted above their abilities and allowed statuses they haven’t earned and platforms they don’t deserve. They reach for shit their mediocre-ass arms are too short to grab. Just as a tiger is going to eventually just go tiger, because that inevitability is coded into his DNA, an aggressively mediocre White man is going to go mediocrewhiteman as long as he’s able to.

If the world were truly just, Donald Trump would be hocking 17-year-old Hyundais in a vacant Youngstown, Ohio lot and Sean Spicer would be his mascot on the sidewalk, holding a “No Credit, No Problem” sign, dressed in a giraffe costume, and using his lunch breaks to masturbate in the bathroom of the Arby’s across the street. But life aint fair, and White Mediocrity rules Washington, so all we can do is hide the diaper bags.

And to think that he is in fact one of the few in a crazy cohort of Putin-owned and installed interlopers… held up as ‘decent’, ‘professional’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘credible’, ‘a good guy’…

In an you could not make up this stuff up, crazy set-up that has folks applauding and ‘breathing a sigh of relief’, and talking up unqualified and mediocre folks that wouldn’t otherwise even marginally be considered for the positions and titles they now pretend-inhabit…and only because they aren’t considered as far out crazy or as badly compromised as the other flat out crazy, greedy, corrupt, treasonous white supremacists and Putinistas…

In what other world would Gary Cohn go from Goldman Sachs to sitting in and weighing in on key ‘national security’ matters….or Dina Powell go from being Ivanka’s ‘women empowerment’ adviser, to Deputy National Security Adiviser in a space of weeks…simply because she just happens to be somewhat saner …and once upon a time worked as some random mid level aide in Bush jr.’s admin…

I only wish that the brutal, cold-blooded murders – at the hands of taxpayer funded, uniformed racists – of innocent black folks just going about their lives, would elicit even half the universal outrage and response and demands for justice – and forgone expectation of generous restitution…

This is what happens when media is owned by the same plutocrats now self-servingly invested in the crazy buffoon they hope to steer to fulfill their agenda…

Some of the media folks see and hear the absurdity…recognize the madness and see the crap for what it is….and are to some extent, if not entirely disturbed by it, somewhat discomfited by events….but they remain silent…complicit ….turn a blind eye and still go along …to keep their paid gigs …

With so many potential story lines percolating at the moment, I’m pretty certain that Julie Hirschfeld Davis wasn’t entirely thrilled to draw the assignment of covering the Trump administration’s preparations (or lack thereof) for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. But she certainly did as much as a human can reasonably be expected to do, essentially hitting a grand slam with her hard hitting and thorough exposure of a catastrophe in the making.

Here are some things her reporting uncovered. Sesame Street will only be sending one (unnamed) character to the event rather than its usual full complement. A typical White House Easter Egg Roll has about 2,000 volunteers. This year it might draw only two hundred volunteers. Last year there were 37,000 attendees at the event, but sources say that Trump will be lucky to get half that many people this year. Washington-area public schools have historically received as many as 4,000 invites, but they haven’t heard a peep from the White House. The same is true for military/veterans organizations that normally account for about 3,000 egg rollers. And, most importantly, the event is normally supplied with approximately 85,000 wooden commemorative eggs, but this year the Trump folks ordered them so late that they’ll be getting only 40,000.

How did this happen? What explains this rank incompetence?

Well, you might want to blame the absent First Lady.

……………………………

This isn’t all that Julie Hirschfeld Davis uncovered. She also learned that military bands will have to fill in for the “A-list entertainers like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Idina Menzel and Silentó who have performed for Egg Rolls past.” She verified that “members of Congress have not received word from the White House about whether they will get tickets to distribute to their constituents.” And, vitally, none of “the organizers of the Yoga Garden featured on the South Lawn during Obama-era Easter Egg Rolls [have] been asked to share their asanas.”

But all the decimation of protections for vulnerable Americans …and all the crazy crap being perpetrated by the white supremacists and Putinistas around her and her father aren’t even remotely disturbing…or bothersome to her…?

The combo sense of entitlement, arrogance, wanton ignorance and utter lack of self-awareness, is mind-blowing…

Studying reels of well-documented and properly archived accounts and every single moment of the Obama admistration and 8 years of well-put together events and activities of the historic President and First Lady who put their heart, soul and authentic vision into every detail…

The brazen impostors trying their darnedest to mimick and very shoddily copy it all…and try to pass it all off as their very own, ‘new’ and ‘classy’ 🙄😂idea…is not only laughable, but a complete fail…and rightly falling apart as it should…

Trump keeps taking credit for Obama-era economic news
04/11/17 10:08 AM
By Steve Benen
When it comes to avoiding responsibility for bad things that happen on his watch, Donald Trump will go to almost any lengths. But the president is also capable of acting with equal vigor when trying to take credit for good things that happen on his watch.

Take yesterday, for example.

President Donald Trump lent his office to Japanese automaker Toyota on Monday, saying the company’s announcement of a $1.33 billion investment in its Georgetown, Kentucky plant was evidence that confidence in the economic climate “has greatly improved under my administration.”

“Toyota’s decision to invest $1.3 billion in their Kentucky plant is further evidence that manufacturers are now confident that the economic climate has greatly improved under my administration,” Trump said in a written statement. The press release was Toyota’s, not the White House’s, which is itself unusual – because ordinarily a president doesn’t communicate with the public through corporate public-relations departments.

Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, being “heartbroken and outraged” at the country’s alleged chemical weapons attack, one of the president’s sons told a British newspaper. […]

Trump’s 33-year-old son, Eric, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday that the strike was influenced in part by Ivanka, who he said she was “heartbroken and outraged” by the chemical attack.

Eric Trump, speaking to the British newspaper while visiting a Trump-branded golf course in Scotland, explained the behind-the-scenes situation at the White House. “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence,” he explained. “I’m sure she said, ‘Listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.”

I’d like to remind you of that day when Trump’s OMB Director Mike Mulvaney told us that the reason this administration’s budget cut funding to programs like Meals on Wheels and after-school initiatives for kids was because they could no longer defend spending tax dollars on programs that don’t work.

Let’s put aside the fact that feeding seniors and children is a self-defined success: hungry people are no longer hungry. It’s really that simple.

My reaction to Mulvaney was that if we’re going to defund programs that don’t work — the best place to start is by ending the so-called “war on drugs.”

………………………………………….

In the last 46 years we’ve spent over $2.5 trillion on that war and all we’ve got to show for it are a lot of dead bodies and the highest incarceration rate on the globe. Meanwhile, the U.S. is the No. 1 nation in the world in illegal drug use.

…………………..

Apparently AG Sessions and his top lieutenant Steven Cook think that we can arrest and incarcerate our way out of the drug problem, even though both science and recent history tell us that is nonsense. It is worth asking why this administration would cling to one failed federal initiative while proposing to eliminate so many others. Ava DuVernay answered that question with a documentary titled simply: “13th.”

Whether it is Sessions’ move to pull away from police reform, his history of opposition to voting rights, or his plans to ramp up the war on drugs, there is one key element that binds his approach on all of these issues…racism. While we’re in the business of breaking taboos, let’s get rid of the one that keeps us from naming exactly what’s going on here.

don’t know how good her legal advice really is, considering that her client managed to bungle his paperwork:

When Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, sought the top-secret security clearance that would give him access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets, he was required to disclose all encounters with foreign government officials over the last seven years.

But Mr. Kushner did not mention dozens of contacts with foreign leaders or officials in recent months. They include a December meeting with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, and one with the head of a Russian state-owned bank, Vnesheconombank, arranged at Mr. Kislyak’s behest…

…The Senate Intelligence Committee informed the White House weeks ago that, as part of its inquiry, it planned to question Mr. Kushner about the meetings he arranged with Mr. Kislyak, including the one with Sergey N. Gorkov, a graduate of Russia’s spy school who now heads Vnesheconombank…

…While officials can lose access to intelligence, or worse, for failing to disclose foreign contacts, the forms are often amended to address lapses. Jamie Gorelick, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, said that the questionnaire was submitted prematurely on Jan. 18, and that the next day, Mr. Kushner’s office told the F.B.I. that he would provide supplemental information.

As Charles Pierce astutely asks, “who among us hasn’t forgotten about the times we met Russian spies who own banks?”

It would have been nice if the election of Donald Trump actually signaled an end to the kind of incestuous relationships that allowed the Democratic nominee for president to praise the man who committed war crimes for Nixon, or for Jared Kushner to hire a Cheney-approved “Democratic” 9/11 commissioner as his personal pro-nepotism representative who will cover for his high-level national security lapses.

Alas, that was not the case.

There’s a swamp to be drained, certainly. Trump and Kushner just aren’t the ones to do it.

But she’s ‘popular’ they insist…in ‘tChyna’…among ‘young women’ who crave ‘fame and wealth’. …and those who’ve been ‘bowled over’ by video of her daughter reciting a poem in chinese…courtesy of the Chinese nanny …something that is interestingly, never ever mentioned..

The fact that Senate Republicans had to use the so-called “nuclear option,” changing the institution’s rules in order to get Gorsuch onto the bench, obviously means this wasn’t an easy process. Indeed, the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had to execute a 14-month scheme, with no precedent in the American tradition, effectively stealing a high court vacancy from one administration in order to hand it to another, reinforces the complexity of this dynamic.

But what rankles is the president’s boast: “I got it done in the first 100 days.” I’m sure it made Trump feel nice to say this, but let’s not forget that Trump didn’t actually do any real work.

Conservative activists helped the Trump campaign put together a list of possible justices before the election; the White House chose a name from that list after the election; and then Senate Republicans used their majority to do all the heavy lifting. As accomplishments go, the president spent vastly more time golfing and tweeting about stuff he saw on television than shepherding Neil Gorsuch through the confirmation process.

As for the audience that heard Trump’s curious boast, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern had a good piece noting one of the attendees at yesterday’s event in the Rose Garden.

Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was made possible in part by the Judicial Crisis Network, which spent $17 million lobbying to keep Merrick Garland off the bench – and to get Gorsuch on it. Where did all that money come from? We don’t know, because it was almost entirely dark money, funneled through a Koch-allied conduit that keeps its donors secret. But the JCN isn’t entirely anonymous: It has a public face in Carrie Severino, the group’s chief counsel and policy director. Severino essentially served as Gorsuch’s lobbyist, throwing money around to ensure his confirmation. Like many lobbyists, she enjoys the access to power that her job affords her.

The passenger who was dragged from an United Airlines flight is 69-year-old David Dao.
Footage of the Vietnamese-American being hauled off the overbooked flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Sunday caused outrage on Monday.

Dao was heard in videos captured of his shocking eviction saying he needed to get home to Louisville so he could see patients of his.

DailyMail can reveal Dr Dao is a father of five and a grandfather, who specializes in internal medicine. Four of his five children are doctors.

More from the above Daily Mail article:“David Dao has been revealed as the man who was dragged from a United flight in Chicago on Sunday. He is pictured with his wife, Teresa, and one of their grandchildren”

“Aviation officers arrived on scene and attempted to carry the individual off the flight when he fell,” the Chicago Police Department said in the statement. “His head subsequently struck an armrest, causing injuries to his face. The man was taken to Lutheran General Hospital

with non-life-threatening injuries.”

I am worried for this passenger:
Did the passenger go voluntarily to the hospital?
Can he leave the hospital any time he chooses?
Is there a guard at the door to his hospital room?
Would a reporter be allowed to see him if he asked for one?
Does he have access to a lawyer from his hospital room?

Black Girls Rock!

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Potus Takes Oath of Office

Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China

My Brothers Keeper

AFRO PUFFS

Most Adorable Shoe Stealer

Six Little Babies

Fatherhood

Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.